Brightest
by Arabellea
Summary: I had been quiet and shy, known mostly for my friends and inability to transfigure even the smallest of buttons. He never would have even noticed me, except somehow he did. This is the story of the first wizarding war, of friendship and secrets and love.


Chapter 1

My mother always said that there was nothing that couldn't be solved by a good movie; a hot cup of tea, a doughnut, and a nice lie down. Over the years, my best mates and me have taken hefty use of these words. All it takes is one of us having a bad day for the rest to yell 'movie night!' and plop down on the floor with our pillows and blankets. It's become something of a ritual.

My two best mates are Emmeline Vance and Marlene Mckinnon. Both have wizard parents, though Emmeline's great grandmother was a muggle. Because of this, they find the small, boxy VHS player and respective tapes Mum sends me endlessly fascinating. Over years of sharing the dorm, we've also grown quite close with Alice Prewett and Lily Evans. Lily is a muggle born, like me, and she always joins me in laughing while everyone else oohs and ahhs over the muggle technology.

At the time this story starts, it was the first day of our sixth year. We'd only been here a day, but we'd already deemed an emergency movie night 100% necessary.

Let me set the scene.

After years of use, our dormitory was a cozy place. Being in there felt like home. We had a kettle Marlene had brought from home in the corner, and beside it we'd commandeered an extra nightstand to hold bags of tea, mugs, and spare flagons of pumpkin juice. Spread out around the room was our five beds, along with the door to the one bathroom, which we fought over often. Marlene's poster of the Holyhead harpies, which had been strange to me my first day, what with it's moving players, now felt as familiar as the photos of my friends and family I'd tacked up by the bed.

The floor was a dark grain wood, but in second year Lily had brought with her a soft maroon rug that matched the Gryffindor hangings to a T. That's where we were all sprawled out, listening both to a fuming Lily and a sniffling Marlene.

"and _then_ -" Lily exclaimed, voice rising in a tempo we were well used too "-he asks me how my summer was, and it's been a good morning, so I think maybe, _maybe_ the prat's finally grown a brain, but no."

We all shake our heads, seeing what's coming. "Too optimistic, Lils." I say.

"So I say that thank you, it was fine, and he nods and says the same for his. And then I turn to leave, and he just says, in that annoying voice of his, if I'll go to the next hogsmeade meeting with him. And the whole time he's been ruffling his hair, and he's such- such- a prat!"

Lily's breathing a little heavily now. Emmeline, who is in the process of charming her thick dark hair into cornrows, casts her a look. "What did you say?"

"No, of course." Lily tosses her hair. "The day I go out with James Potter is the day the giant squid climbs out of the lake and does a polka."

"Actually," grins Alice, shooting her a mischievous look "didn't Dumbledore say that happened back in 1812?"

Lily doesn't deem to give that an answer. "And on top of that," she finished, "McGonagall's gone and sat us next to each other in Transfiguration. So I won't be able to get a break from him all year!"

"At least you're in Transfiguration!" wails Marlene, who has been rather quiet up until this point. Tears form in her eyes. "My parents are going to kill me!"

"Yeah," Alice encourages, patting Marlene on her shoulder "but seven OWL's is perfectly respectable. Besides, with the dropped class, you'll have more time for Quidditch!"

"True," Marlene sniffles, though I can see a smile forming. Marlene is an avid Quidditch player. It's all she wants to do when she grows up. She's a beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and a fantastic one at that. Her grades are a little scrappy, but with talent like hers, it's not like she'll need them.

"Mrggh…" I groan, rolling over into my pillow. "Let's not talk about transfiguration."

"Why?" Alice chirps, though she knows bloody well why.

Unlike some of my friends, magic wasn't something I grew up with. I always knew something was different about me, but there was no one around to tell me what it was. So when I got the letter when I was eleven, it seemed like the most amazing thing in the world. It seemed to me that I must be the luckiest child alive, if I was allowed to go off to a castle and learn magic. I spent that summer pouring over, memorizing my textbooks. I had never been the top of my class, but now I was determined to be. I had been given that chance, and I was not going to screw it all up it up. Last year, I managed to scrape 10 OWLs with 8 'Outstanding's' among them.

But Transfiguration has always been the death of me. I would be the first to admit that I am not altogether a confident person, and this has harmed me the most in that class. To transfigure things, you had to have a certain confidence in yourself, which I was sorely lacking. People are still talking about the time I somehow turned the paper clip into the giant purple guinea pig that breathed clouds.

"I practically had to beg McGonagall to let me into her class this year." I say, by voice, still muffled by the pillow. "She almost never takes people who got an 'Acceptable' for her NEWT classes. She told me that unless she sees's real improvement, I'll be forced to drop the class. I was supposed to practice over the summer."

"And did you?" Alice says skeptically.

I sit up. "Well, um, about that…"

"Lettie!" Emmeline exclaims, throwing a book at me, "You must give effort in your studies!"

She says this dead seriously. Emmeline can be a little pompous and formal sometimes. We love her for it.

Alice glances at her watch. "It's getting late now guys. If we're watching the movie we'd better start."

"Hell yes we're watching the movie!" Lily exclaims, pumping her fist in the air and cracking open the box of donuts my mother packed with me. "Let's go meet the Von Trapp children!"

We all whoop, as 'The Sound of Music' is an old favorite of all of ours. As the opening bars begin to play, I look around at all my friends and smile to myself. I'm finally back at Hogwarts. It'll be an amazing year.

 **A/N So that's the first chapter! I hope you like this short introduction to the characters. Please let me know what you think!**


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